"How do I see what tournaments are coming up?"

Choose "Upcoming Events" under the "Events" menu at the top of the page (or just click here). Filter that list using the search fields at the top.

"How do I find out more about an upcoming tournament?"

Choose "Upcoming Events" under the "Events" menu at the top of the page (or just click here).

Click by the tournament.

"How do I contact the organizers of a tournament?"

Future Event: Choose "Upcoming Events" under the "Events" menu at the top of the page (or just click here).

Past Event: Choose "Browse Results" under the "Results" menu at the top of the page (or just click here).

Click by the tournament.

"How do I see the results for a recent tournament?"

Choose "Browse Results" under the "Results" menu at the top of the page (or just click here).

Click the name of the tournament.

"How do I see my (or my club's, or...) results for this season (or in B rated tournaments, or...)?"

Choose "Search Results" under the "Results" menu at the top of the page (or just click here).

Enter your search criteria in either the Quick Search or the Super Search.

"The results from the tournament last week (month, year,...) still aren't in FRED. Why not?"

The tournament organizers are responsible for entering results. I'd never suggest you annnoy anyone, but sometimes the organizers need a bit of prodding to get results posted. ;^)

"Who the h**l is "FRED" anyway?"

FRED stands for "Fencing Results and Events Database". Thanks to Bill Nary for the name idea.

"Who is responsible for this FRED thing?"

Peet Sasaki: fencer, coach and web developer from Salle Auriol Seattle is the man to blame. Nobody pays him for it; he does it out of the goodness of his heart. Acts of outrageous monetary generosity are always accepted.

"I wish I could register for national tournaments online. Why doesn't the USFA use FRED or something like him?"

Don't even get me started about this.

"My question isn't here, and the answer definitely isn't here."

Sorry about that. contact the helpdesk, and we'll help you (and then put your question here, too (boy, do i like parentheses!)).

Tournament Organizers

"How can I post my tournaments on FRED?"

You need a "Bout Committee" account, which enables you to post tournaments and clinics, host points lists, and manage fencers and clubs. Please visit this page to get started.

"I tried to log into the demo website, but it says "The username and/or password you entered were not found". How can that be? I just created my membership!"

You must log in using the username "demo" and the password "demo". Your membership is not on the demo site, it is on the live site. The demo site is completely separate from the live site.

"I just created a membership on the demo site, but I can't find the "My Tournaments" menu option, nor any other tournament organizer stuff."

Don't create a membership on the demo site. It's just not going to be useful to you. Log in using the username "demo" and the password "demo" to test drive the demo site.

Preregistration Questions

"How do I preregister for a tournament?"

Choose "Upcoming events" under the "Events" menu at the top of the page (or just click here).

Find the tournament you want, and then click the preregister link ().

Find yourself in FRED's fencer list by entering your last name, and then choosing yourself from the list that follows.

If you're not in the list of fencers, click "Create a new fencer record". Please Note: Even if you have never entered yourself into FRED, others may have.

Fill in the forms. You should receive a confirmation email in a minute or two.

If FRED is accepting payment of fees for the tournament, you will be taken to the secure payment form.

"How do I cancel my preregistration for a tournament?"

There are three ways:

Registered FRED members: click next to the preregistration on your "MyFRED" page.

OR:

Look to the links in the confirmation email you received at the time of preregistration.

OR:

Email the organizers and ask them to delete it. ( email links can be found everywhere on the site that the tournament is listed)

"How do I change my preregistration for a tournament?"

There are two ways:

Just preregister again, making sure to choose from FRED's list of fencers rather than create a new fencer record.

Look to the links in the confirmation email you received at the time of preregistration.

"Someone preregistered me for a tournament that I don't intend to attend. How can I prevent that? Why is that possible?"

FRED allows users to preregister fencers other than themselves for tournaments because many parents and coaches need to be able to preregister their kids/students. This feature was much requested, and is a part of what makes FRED a useful tool. For the most part, this works well, however some FRED users prefer to prevent anyone else from preregistering them. Here's how:

Register for membership if you haven't already done that.

Log in.

Choose "Edit my Profile" under the MyFRED menu.

Check "Prereg Lock" under "Options" and submit.

NOTE: doing this will require you to log in with your username and password every time you preregister.

Credit Card Payment Issues

"I paid for registration for a tournament but I can't attend. Can I get a refund?"

As noted on the payment form next to the box you checked when paying:

"I understand that any refunds of fees paid through askfred.net are the sole responsibility of the tournament organizers, subject to their policies"

Please contact the tournament organizers about a refund. ( email links can be found everywhere on the site that the tournament is listed)

"I was double-charged!"

If so, please accept our apologies while we address the issue.

If you received more than one email receipt from the payment processor for the same preregistration, please contact the helpdesk and include the body text of the emails. Receipt emails have this subject line: "askFRED.net Customer Receipt/Purchase Confirmation". Please include the payor's name, the fencer's name, the tournament name as it appears on this site, and the time & date of your transaction(s).

If you did not receive more than one receipt, you almost certainly have not been charged more than once. If you called your bank (perhaps after several declined transactions on the FRED site), and they said there are several charges on your card today, that might not actually be the case. Those are actually pre-authorizations, not charges. They will drop off your account in a short time (usually a few days). Unfortunately, within a short time of the attempted transactions, your bank can't tell the difference. To explain:

During authorization the payment processor asks your bank a bunch of questions, including:

"Does the cardholder have enough credit for this transaction"

"Does the billing address match"

"Does the cvv number match the one on the back of the card"

And probably other things too. If any of the answers are not positive, the processor stops the transaction, and the charge does not occur.

Here's the catch though: Your bank puts a hold (pre-auth) on the amount the processor asked about. Why? To prevent people from accidentally going over credit limit: Because the authorization and the actual capture and transfer of funds are separate transactions that may be separated in time (particularly in retail, where transactions are all captured at the end of the day), if they didn't put that hold on, it would be possible for a cardholder to go and buy seven $100 items in one day when they only have $200 of credit left.

It's unfortunate, but it's part of the system, so it's out if our hands.

Unless you have received multiple receipt emails, please wait five business days to allow the pre-auths to expire. If after that period, they still appear on your account, please contact the helpdesk to address the issue. Please include the payor's name, the fencer's name, the tournament name as it appears on this site, and the time & date of your transaction(s).

"How do I pay for a previous preregistration?"

(If the organizers have chosen to accept fees through FRED) Just preregister again, making sure to choose from FRED's list of fencers rather than create a new fencer record. Then, after the preregistration form, continue on through the payment form.

"What currency does FRED accept?"

All fees paid via FRED are charged in US dollars. This is true for events and customers in all countries.

"I forgot my password."

"I tried the "forgot password" link, but when I put in my email address, it said 'We have no record of that email address'."

That indicates one of two things:

You do not have a membership account. Remember, a fencer can be in the FRED database without having a membership. There are thousands of fencers in FRED who have never even visited the site. Try registering for a membership and if your name comes up in the list of fencers that do not have memberships, you can create one.

OR:

Your account has a different email address on it than the one you entered. Try any other email address you may have used when you created your membership, even if you no longer have access to that account. If you find that the email address on your membership is one to which you no longer have access, please contact the helpdesk.

"I received the password reset email from FRED, but the password in it didn't work."

The two most common reasons that people have troubles with the password reset email:

Did you click the link in the password change email? That part is required. If your email program does not make the whole link "clickable", copy & paste it into your web browser.

If you copy & paste the randomly generated password, make sure that there are 8 characters in the password field when you paste. Some email programs copy the space character after the word, making it 9 characters. If yours does, delete the last one.

"I tried to create a membership for my son/daughter, but i got the error: 'Another member already has that email address'."

FRED requires that each member have a unique email address. This is for privacy and security. Families with more than one fencer but ony one email address have a couple choices:

Get another email address for the additional membership. Perhaps a free account such as gmail, hotmail, or yahoomail. If possible, set up a free email address to forward to your "real" email address.

OR:

Don't bother creating an account for the other fencers in the family. Membership is not a requirement to use the core features of the FRED site (preregistration, appearing in results, etc.)

Errors & Updates in FRED's Records

"How do I fix an error in the results for a tournament?"

If you are the Bout Committee for that tournament:

If you uploaded results from Fencing Time, fix the results in FT, and then re-export and re-upload the results

If you keyed in the results:

Choose "My Tournaments" under the "MyFRED" menu

Choose the tournament from the list.

Click "Key in results" under Results.

Click through to the results entry page, and fix the results as neccessary.